The Doctor and the Wolf
by awkotacointhetardis
Summary: When he left her on that beach so many years ago, Rose Tyler knew that he hadn't known - how could he have? And she didn't blame him. Not one bit. But after one hundred years of being the last Time Lady in her universe, she knows that if she's alone for too much longer, she'll go insane. Can she find her Doctor, or will she be alone forever?
1. Bad Wolf Bay

Rose Tyler sat alone on bad wolf bay, watching the waves crash into the sand. She shivered, and looked behind her, knowing what she would see – or rather, wouldn't – and wishing with all of her heart that she could see the one thing that she needed to.

Nothing was there.

She sighed, inwardly cursing at herself. Of course he wasn't there. Why would he be there? He'd said himself, that this was the last time that he'd see her again. She could remember the day clearly – the last day she'd seen the doctor. She'd stared into the eyes of the metacrisis as he'd whispered the words that she'd been waiting for her whole life – "Rose, Tyler, I love you." And she'd kissed him. She hadn't known that her doctor – the one she loved, the one she knew – had gotten onto the tardis and left. Just left her. Left her alone on a beach. For days afterwards, she'd been distraught – no one could speak to her, for she would speak to no one. Even the metacrisis doctor would try to comfort her, and she'd send him away. She'd stared at her wall, clutching her tardis key in her hands, not crying, not speaking, not eating. Just staring.

Rose shook her head, trying to clear the memory. She didn't want to revisit the past – at least not things like that, she didn't. She remembered everything so clearly now. Sometimes, remembering things hurt. Some days were worse than others – sometimes she was up, laughing and playing – sometimes she could barely get out of bed, her head hurt so much. And honestly, she wasn't sure wether or not she was glad that she'd taken the risk that she had. She'd planned on telling her doctor what she'd done, what she always had done – sacrificed everything to stay with him. But there had never been time. As soon as she thought that he was going to finally take her with him, he'd left. And now – now she didn't know wether he was even alive or not.

Rose bit her lip. He hadn't even asked how long she'd waited. Of course he hadn't asked. She laughed, a bitter sound. But no one ever asked, and No one ever stayed. And after a while, she'd learned to stop expecting them to.

She brushed the sand off of her hands. She liked it here, liked living on the beach – even though the mere memory of it was painful, like a knife in her hearts every time that she thought of him. But it was a good kind of pain. She stared at the spot where the tardis had left her a hundred years ago, and she sighed. And then, Rose Tyler, the valiant child, the bad wolf, the time lady – stood up, brushed herself off, and walked off of the beach. After all, she smirked, brushing her hair out of her face – after all, she had a job to do.


	2. Home

Rose Tyler sat on the floor of her living room, glaring at the contraption in her hands. "Work, you stupid piece of technology," She told it, grumbling. Biting her lip, she picked up a thin tool from the floor and inserted into a a hole inside of the machinery in her hands.

"Please, please please..." She pleaded, hearing the click of the tool. She stood, brushed herself off, and watched it. Nothing happened. "Ugh!" Rose yelled, siting down with her head in her hands. She was never going to get it to work. It would never work. She was a failure. It was all her fault. Everything was her fault. She should just -

"Shut up!" She told her own mind. "Shut up, shut up, shut up." She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to think of something, to think of anything other than that. She understood how the Doctor felt all of the time, now, and she pitied him.

Rose stood, running her hands through her hair. If it wasn't going to work today, then fine. She would have to find something else to do. If she spent too much time sitting there, tinkering with it, she would go mad.

She walked towards the kitchen, rummaging in one of the drawers for tea. She selected a bag at random, and set it on the counter before going to heat up some water. While Rose waited for the water to heat, she pulled out her computer from it's bag on the floor and flipped open the screen.

IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED, the screen read, and, sighing, she typed in her codes. The screen redirected the webpage, and soon she was staring at a list. It was a list that she had gone over many times, a list that still didn't make sense, a list that never made sense. She knew what it was, of course. She just didn't know what it meant. Rose stared at the instructions willing them to make sense. But they didn't. Random numbers, letters, phrases and words splattered themselves across the page. Even Rose's time lord - or rather, time lady -mind struggled to understand it. Every time that she thought she understood, she realized that she didn't know at all what she was doing. Rose opened another window on her computer, not wanting to continue to stare at the one puzzle she hadn't been able to solve. In the new window, she typed in a website, and waited a moment as the computer loaded.

Her internet was slow, but usually it wasn't a big deal. Before, with the doctor, she hadn't needed Internet. Or a house. Or money. Or a job. He'd given her this things. But now that she was alone, Rose had to fend for herself. It has been hard but not as hard as she would've thought. The first time she been left in the universe she hadn't even gotten a job. When the doctor and come back to say goodbye to her, And asked her what she was doing with her life she had the heart to tell him she was working in the shop again. After seeing the disappointed look on his face when she told him, she quickly taken it back claiming she worked for torchwood. Back then even saying that she works for that place had disgusted her. Torchwood was was what had torn her from her doctor. She would never have worked there.

But the second time that he'd left her, with the metacrisis that she could never have because she knew she would outlive him, Rose had begun to tire of her boring life. Every day she went to the shop. Every single day. After what Rose had thought would be a lifetime of adventuring the stars with the doctor she couldn't just go back to being a shopgirl. So she'd done some research. Although she hadn't liked it, she got a job torchwood. At first she thought of doing it because of Jack. He worked it torchwood, she knew. And even though she wasn't her Jack wasn't a little bit of him better than nothing at all? But she'd been in for a nasty surprise. The Jack this universe had died many years ago. Because there wasn't a doctor in this universe. Because there wasn't a Rose Tyler.

Rose heard the sound of the tea kettle whistle and stood to go get her tea. She pulled down her favorite mug, The same blue as the tardis, and pour the steaming hot water into it. She grabbed the teabag, absentmindedly dipping it into the water. She brought it to her lips, and instantly regretted it. The water was boiling hot. Yelping, she pulled the mother away from her mouth. Rose ran over to the bathroom to wash out her mouth with cold water.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her long blonde hair was messy, for she hadn't brushed it in days. She looked tired. Rose stared at herself for a minute more, before sighing and looking away from the mirror. She headed back into the kitchen and caught a glimpse of the object that she needed to make work in order to get home, and sighed. Soon, she promised herself. She would make it work soon. She just needed to figure out how.


	3. The Daleks

"You will be ex-ter-minated!" Rose whipped her head around to see a dalek in her living room. She ducked just in time, barely missing the beam of light that, if she hadn't moved, would have killed her.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, indignant as she peeked her head up from under the counter where she was hiding. "That's not very nice!"  
"You are Rose Tyler," The dalek rolled towards her, and she grinned. "Yep, that's me!"

"You will be ex-ter-minated!"

"Not today!" She twisted and grabbed the gun from behind her, aimed it and looked away as she pulled the trigger.

When she looked back, the dalek was no longer a dalek, and her entire living room floor was covered in pieces of what once what a feared alien.

Rose sighed to herself, thinking about what a hassle it was going to be to clean up. Plus, she had all of those pieces of alien technology already sitting around in her living room.

Rose shot up and raced over to where she had been sitting only a few minutes ago, searching the floor for what she had been working on.

_There! _Rose snatched up what she had been looking for and began examining it, letting out a sigh of relief a moment later when she saw that it was untouched. She couldn't imagine what she would have done if the dalek had destroyed it, and shivered at the mere thought. It was unthinkable.

Rose frowned at the priceless object in her hands, worried at the thought of just how breakable it was. _I'll have to put you in a safer place, _she thought to herself, looking around to see if she could see someplace better. She settled on simply placing it on a counter – at least until she could find another spot.

Carefully stepping over the dalek bits, she made her way towards her door, and with only a small amount of effort, she pulled it open and stepped outside.

At once, she felt the cool air coming from the ocean in her face, and smiled at the warm scent of the salty ocean. Rose stuck out her tongue to taste the air – a habit that she had learned from the Doctor. Her happiness about being on that beach was brought down by both the thought of _him _and the taste of the air. It wasn't quite right. But it was never quite right.

Sighing, Rose sat down on one of the chairs she had on her porch, staring out at the gray waves that crashed onto the sand. Nothing was quite right anymore.

Soon after her own Doctor had died – he'd always liked her to call him Doctor, she remembered with a smile. She'd suggested calling him John Smith, because, after all, that was the name he always used when he pretended to be human. But he declined, saying that he was just like the Doctor and would, therefore, keep his own name. And she had to agree. Now, the name hurt her twice as much – once for her love that she'd never had and once for the love that she'd had to watch grow old and die.

Rose rested her head on the palm of her hand. Her Doctor had died about fifty years ago – she didn't keep track of time anymore, it passed too quickly – and since almost the day that he'd died, her life had been thrown into chaos. That had been about the time of the first dalek invasion. It had been horrible, her worst nightmare come true. They'd swarmed the streets, killing women, men and children. Screaming out that they were searching for the Doctor and the Wolf, and they would stop at nothing to find them.

Rose smiled a bit at the name that they had given her. Wolf. The Bad Wolf had haunted her for so many years now that she almost couldn't imagine her life without it. It was ironic that that would be the name that they would choose to call her. But, in a way, it did make sense.

It was a good thing that her Doctor had already passed away by the time that the daleks had come. The things that they'd done… she shivered. It would have been a living hell for him to even think about it happening. If he'd actually seen it… well, he wasn't called the oncoming storm for no reason.

But there was no way that he would have survived it. He was only human – and the daleks had killed all of them. Commited a genocide – or as far as she could tell. She bristled at the mere thought of how many thousands, how many billions of people had died that year. They'd taken over the earth, and she'd been forced to run.

Rose looked behind her at her house. It was the first actual place that she'd bought for herself since the daleks. Norway was one of the places with the fewest dalek populations in the world, and the safest for her. Of course she'd chosen this beach – where else could she constantly be watching for him? A nagging thought reminded her that he would never come, but she pushed it away. If he could come, he would. She had never doubted that. And the moment that he figured out a way, he would come to her. She just had to believe it.

But Rose had to admit that believing in him hadn't gotten her very far. Oh, that didn't mean that she didn't – if she believed in one thing, she believed in the Doctor. But after a little while, she'd had to stop simply waiting for him to come and save her and start thinking about how she could save herself.

The wind was making her cold, and so she stood up and headed back inside. Being a Time Lady, she had lower body temperatures so that she could have, in another life perhaps, survived on Gallifrey where it was colder. But on Earth, it wasn't very useful. It had, however, helped her to be more comfortable in the cold climate of Bad Wolf Bay, and so she welcomed her new Time Lady senses.

But she also welcomed the warmth of her home, and as she felt the warmth returning to her, Rose smiled. She carefully stepped over the bits of dalek, once again putting off the actual cleaning of it and headed towards her kitchen.

Rose Tyler sat down on her counter, picked up her lukewarm tea and took a sip, admiring the view. Just a normal day in her life – a beach in norway, a dead dalek and some tea. Life, she reasoned, could be worse.


End file.
